Christ's Prayer For His Disciples.1

"This is life eternal: that all might know the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have glorified you on earth by completing the work that you entrusted to me. Now, Father, reveal my glory as I stand in your presence, the glory I have known with you since before the world began."

--Jesus

"This is what the LORD says: "Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, [nor the NSA boast of their data,] but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the LORD." --Jeremiah

Mankind's love affair with all things technological is being exposed for what it really is: a deep seated belief in our ability to control our own destiny....apart from God.  Far from a public outcry at Big Government snooping on our private affairs, a collective yawn sweeps across the land of the (rapidly deteriorating) "free" and home of the shamefully-indifferent-fading-memory-of-bravery.

It is a truth that what we worship in the object of our devotion is what we worship in ourselves.  What we extol in ourselves is not, typically, the Divine attributes of kindness, justice, and righteousness, but rather power and status.  How else to account for our fascination with the pomp and circumstance of Hollywood or Washington DC, the Super Bowl or Olympic champions, Wall Street or Bourbon Street, Silicon Valley or The Pentagon.

As the government collects more data on US citizens, presumably to keep us safe, we can only conjecture on what they could do with it.  The details of the IRS' decision to target certain political groups sends a chilling message of what people in power are capable of in the name of safety and "fairness".

In Buried Treasures, Rabbi Lapin makes a powerful point that goodness cannot be separated from God:  

"...the English word 'good' derives directly from the source of all good, which is God.   ...There is a compelling linguistic argument that originally humans understood that God and Kindness were not two separate ideas.  There is also a logical argument to be made that all attempts to define goodness or kindness without a framework of reference [in God] are doomed.  They were not even two separate words.

For as long as they were understood as a sort of merged reality, each dependent on the other for meaning, mankind was better off.  However, once a culture commences to define kindness with a political frame of reference instead of a religious one, it runs the danger of stepping on to the slippery slope that ultimately converts kindness to cruelty and tyranny."   

We know that the Perfect revelation of God cannot be separated from Jesus.  Let us press on to  completing the work He has entrusted to us: knowing Him! Let a fearless faith and commitment be strengthened in our knowing Eternal Life!  Be glorified in our knowing You Father!

"But you, LORD, 

are a shield around me, 

my glory, 

the One who lifts my head high.

I call out to the LORD, 

and he answers me from his holy mountain.

I lie down and sleep; 

I wake again, because the LORD sustains me.

I will not fear though tens of thousands 

assail me on every side." --David

The Great Commission.15

"Truly, it is a fire that I have come to bring upon the earth. How I long to see it ablaze! Did you imagine that I had come to bring peace and tranquility?  No, I tell you, I have come to spread division! From now on, there will be five in one house, divided as to what they should believe, three against two, and two against three."

--Jesus

"For Richard was now but too well convinced that he had no power of persuasion equal to the task of making Dorothy see things as he saw them.  The dividing influence of imperfect opposing goods is potent as that of warring good and evil, with this important difference, that the former is but for a season, and will one day bind as strongly as it parted, while the latter is essential, absolute, impassible, eternal." --MacDonald, from St. George and St. Michael.

Sadly, mine is a divided house.  One son coaches wrestling for Central Michigan University; two sons wrestle for Michigan State University.  Normally it's not much of an issue...until the two teams compete against each other.  Normally CMU wins and the trash talking ensues.  Normally, love of wrestling heals all wounds...

Sadly, the USA is a divided house.  But it is not divided over a favorite sports team.  It is divided over what we should believe.  Many of us believe, rightly in my opinion, that it is a "warring between good and evil", rather than opinion over "imperfect opposing goods."  Whether it is economic issues such as private property vs redistribution, or social issues such as "pro-choice" vs "pro-life"; it is imperative to the health of the nation that we are able to see the debate for what it really is and know if we still have the capacity to distinguish good from evil.

The point here is not to rehash why one view is better than the other, but that there must be a point when the fires blaze!  Jesus was not advocating anarchy, but purity of conviction which leads to the rule of righteousness.  We have long debated whether Abraham Lincoln was a hero or tyrant.  What we cannot debate is that the eradication of slavery was a costly victory that only came as the fire of passions blazed!  The only question that remains: are we a better nation because we paid the price?  Is the world a better place because the people of the United States of America were willing to pay that price and make a statement against an evil practice that was old as human society?

This question still remains: do we have the courage of our convictions even today?  Will the evil of tyranny & despotism finally be eradicated in the world by the fire of conviction and the will to righteousness beginning here in the land of the free?  Are we still the home of the brave...or, as Mark Twain observed, ‘the average man’s a coward...’  

May the guiding hand of Divine Providence help us answer that question even as Jesus proclaimed to every generation of mankind: ‘how I long to see it ablaze!’ May the love of good and hatred of evil inspire us to be men of courage to this generation!  

The world will be a better place for it.